


shadows bring the starlight

by midnightmew



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (only slight), Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Platonic Cuddling, Pre-Relationship, Sleepy Cuddles, The relationship can be interpreted as platonic or romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 18:27:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18287819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightmew/pseuds/midnightmew
Summary: Hamid and Sahsa comfort each other in different ways when the other needs it.'I’ve been in the same place my whole life and now,’ she gestured to the sprawling city below them. ‘Bit of a big change I guess.’ She mumbled as she made sure not to look anywhere in the direction of Hamid. ‘Didn’t really see my life going this way mate, but here I am on the roof of the poshest fucking hotel I’ve ever seen in Paris of all places. Guess I didn’t think I would ever get away from Barret properly. Well, I mean…’ she gave a glance at Hamid’s ring, she still wasn’t really as far away as she’d like to be, especially when there was every chance that he was listening into this very conversation, but it was a start.





	shadows bring the starlight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HematiteBadger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HematiteBadger/gifts).



> For HematiteBadger as part of the Rusty Quill Gaming Exchange, I hope you like this :)
> 
> Title taken from the song 'Those You've Known'
> 
> Content warnings for discussion of cutting off fingers, and description of a mild panic attack with references to more serious ones.

i

The rooftop was cold, and Sasha had long accepted that losing sensation in her fingertips was just a price she would have to pay in return for the stunning view she got over the city. Since spending her first night up here with the gargoyles, she had found herself returning every night. Sometimes the gargoyles would talk to her, point out parts of the city to her that they found particularly interesting. This resulted in her being able to tell the rest of the team entrances to passages and tunnels all over the city along with a whole selection of good hiding spots, but if one of them were to ask her where they could get food, she would be clueless. The gargoyles were good for teaching her some things, but others she was going to have to work out for herself.

The city sprawled out below her was alive and buzzing with light and sound despite it being the middle of the night. Sure, London had its own fair share of nightlife, but it was nothing like there was here in Paris. It struck Sasha then just how far away she was from home. Around a week ago she was leaving London for the first time in her life, and now she was here, in an entirely different country all together.

It had all happened so fast, she hadn’t even had time to stop and think about just how much had occurred since that first day in the alleyway. She wasn’t really a ‘stop and think about things’ kind of person, the only problems she had in her life were usually the ones that could be solved with a dagger or two, maybe a few well-timed explosives if the situation called for it. It wasn’t that she didn’t think about things at all- the way Bertie seemed to live his life- but rather that having time to stop and reflect wasn’t usually a luxury Sasha could afford. It had been all she could do for most of her life to keep on her feet, keep moving lest the past catch up to her in one of the many monstrous forms it took. But now she was here, and yes, they had a mission to be getting on with, but she had all night before that was to become a priority again.

She missed London, Paris was new and exciting, with all its flashy lights and shiny technology, but at times it felt like a lot for her to take in all at once. She found herself longing for the more simplistic passages of Other London. It wasn’t a place she usually found herself missing, but she felt comfortable enough down there, and as much as she didn’t like to admit it even to herself it  _was_  her home. She had never really missed it before, she preferred the rest of London far more. There were more buildings to climb- living underground there was only so high up one could get- and she had to admit there was a certain beauty to the stars at night that you couldn’t see from below the streets.

Maybe London didn’t have any of this stuff that Paris did, but it was hers. She could navigate the streets both above and below in her sleep, and she she didn’t have to second guess every word in her attempts to be understood like she did when she was speaking french.

‘Sasha?’ She was jerked out of her thoughts by a quiet call from the balcony below her. She looked down, being careful not to lean too far over the edge of the roof. Hamid was stood on the balcony, still in his pyjamas, clearly still too asleep to use the sleeves to switch into proper clothes. From what she could see of him from her vantage point he seemed worried, and as he called out her name again, she could hear the tremble in it as his call became a little more frantic.

‘Up here,’ she called down. She kind of wanted to stay alone up here, but he seemed so concerned about where she was that she had to let him know. Sasha from a few weeks ago would have scolded herself for being so easily won over by a display of emotion, but she supposed things had changed. She knew that Hamid would worry himself sick if she didn’t respond and a fatigued wizard was not going to be helpful to them at all the next day.

She heard him scrambling up the side of the building, far less elegant than she had been earlier that evening, it wasn’t exactly a hard building to scale, he just didn’t have the experience that she had perfected over the years. She reached out a hand when she saw him emerging into view and reached out a hand to give him a tug up the last part until he was sitting next to her on the roof, his legs dangling off the edge as he struggled to catch his breath.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught him prestidigitating himself into a more presentable state- eyeliner and all- and changing his clothes into something more suited for the cool night-time air.

‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he started explaining, ‘and when I went out of my room, I saw your door wide open, and well I guess I worried.’ He looked down, avoiding eye contact with her, ‘Just there’s so much going on and we still have no idea who’s behind it all, or even what we’re even meant to be doing here…’ He trailed off, as he noticed that while he had been speaking, his hands had transformed into claws again. Sasha had as little idea as to why this was happening as the rest of them did, but though she wasn’t ever going to tell Hamid this, she was secretly a little jealous. Claws would be particularly useful in climbing, even if they might hinder her dagger throwing ability somewhat. She had adapted to losing fingers, she was sure she would be able to adapt to claws as well if the opportunity ever presented itself.

‘Just came out here to look at the city, I guess?’ she explained to Hamid, fidgeting slightly where she sat. She wasn’t really one for explaining her actions, but luckily Hamid seemed content with her reasoning, or at least understood that it was something she didn’t really want to discuss with him.

‘I guess it’s quite different from London when you’ve never been anywhere else before.’ He remarked, jumping a little as one of the gargoyles moved slightly.

Sasha let out a laugh at Hamid’s surprise, ‘Don’t worry,’ she assured him, ‘I made friends with all of them the first night we arrived. But yeah, it’s odd I guess. I’ve been in the same place my whole life and now,’ she gestured to the sprawling city below them. ‘Bit of a big change I guess.’ She mumbled as she made sure not to look anywhere in the direction of Hamid. ‘Didn’t really see my life going this way mate, but here I am on the roof of the poshest fucking hotel I’ve ever seen in  _Paris_ of all places. Guess I didn’t think I would ever get away from Barret properly. Well, I mean…’ she gave a glance at Hamid’s ring, she still wasn’t really as far away as she’d like to be, especially when there was every chance that he was listening into this very conversation, but it was a start.

‘You sure you don’t want me to cut that off for you?’ She offered again, half knowing what the answer would be before she even asked. When it had been her, she had hacked it off at the first opportunity, but Hamid seemed to be a bit uptight at the suggestion of losing a finger. He hadn’t already lost some of his to knife accidents when he was a child and it showed, she thought to herself with a grin as she saw the look of horror that flashed across his face.

‘N-no Sasha,’ he stammered out, his voice even more high pitched then it usually was, and she had to smile at his terrified expression. ‘I’d like to keep my fingers, kind of important for doing spells.’

‘I dunno,’ Sasha said, playing with him now, ‘Learning to throw knives without a couple was actually a far easier experience than I thought it was gonna be, I’m sure you could adapt?’ She reached for a dagger from one of her many pockets and threw it up in the air, catching it securely in the hand that was missing a finger and a half.

Hamid was now backing away from her slightly, and she could tell from the look on his face that he was genuinely concerned about the fate of his fingers.

‘Don’t worry mate, I’m just messing with you,’ she said, tucking the dagger securely back into her pocket. ‘I wouldn’t cut off your fingers without asking, unlike some people…’ she trailed off darkly, thinking back to a girl she had known in Other London who had a reputation for cutting peoples fingers off while they slept. She was the reason why Sasha always slept with her hands balled into fists within her pockets.

Hamid looked like he wanted to ask, and then decided that the story was something that he probably wasn’t going to want to hear, unless he wanted to throw up again. Sasha told it to him anyway, apologising without any hint of real sympathy when he began to look queasy at her extended descriptions of knives sawing through finger bones.

After that she kept her stories a little tamer, though she quickly realised that her definition of ‘tame’ was  _very_ different to Hamid’s definition after he had seemed shocked at some of the stories that she had considered to be funny childhood anecdotes.

Still, it was nice to have the distraction, and though she knew she was going to be tired the next day, she didn’t want to end the conversation. So they talked through the night, until Hamid fell asleep just after sunrise, leaned against her shoulder. A week ago she would have pushed him off, not caring if it woke him, but now she let him stay there as she leant back a little to try and get a couple of hours sleep herself. At least she could sleep with the certainty that Hamid wasn’t the kind of guy who was going to try and steal her fingers. Or her kidneys.  _That_  had been one wild night, once upon a time in a previous life.

 

ii

Hamid had just about managed to make it back to the hotel without making too much of a scene on the streets of Prague. Make no mistake, he was crying so hard he could barely see, but it was late at night and the only people out were so drunk that they weren’t paying attention to a sobbing halfling accompanied by an awkward woman carrying a few too many daggers. He could tell that he was making Sasha very uncomfortable. She wasn’t great with people in tears and he knew that she probably had no idea what the appropriate thing to do in this situation was.

He wished he could just stop crying, it had been Zolf’s choice, and he knew it was probably for the best that he didn’t end up killing Bertie or vice-versa. It was the best outcome for the team in this situation, but it didn’t mean that he wasn’t massively upset about it.

He had always been prone to outbursts of emotion, he had gotten into trouble on many occasions when he was younger for bursting into tears the moment something went slightly wrong. He would have liked to think that he had become better at controlling it as he grew up, but there were still times when the tears would just start pouring down his face and there was nothing he could to do stop it.

He knew that he probably looked a mess, having put on eyeliner that morning. It would be a simple thing to fix, just a wave of his hand and it would be back to normal, but he knew that he would cry it all off again and he really didn’t have the energy for magic anyway.

He was aware that Sasha was having to make a conscious effort to walk at his pace. Since she had gained enhanced speed, the difference between the two of them had become even more pronounced, and an exhausted Hamid meant that she was probably having to walk at what for her was a snail’s pace. But even the ever-tactless Sasha hadn’t tried to hurry him along. He suspected that she was sad about Zolf as well, even though she would never show it in a million years.

Sasha had probably been the one who had been closest to Zolf out of all of them, even if it was Hamid who seemed to be taking this the hardest. Hamid already had Bertie, and Sasha and Zolf seemed to enjoy sitting together in companionable silence, neither of them being the most talkative of people. He wondered what it would be like to see inside her head, for she rarely displayed much outward emotion, maybe she just kept it all to herself, or maybe she truly was as unshakeable as the image she liked to portray.

He tried to speed up his walking a little, wiping at his face with his sleeves, ignoring the large streaks of black he left on them for he could always change the sleeves. When he let out a particularly large sob, he felt Sasha’s hand on his shoulder- which was of course about the height of her waist- and smiled up at her.

Upon seeing him, she smiled back, a small little grin that had started to make its appearance more and more over the past couple of weeks, despite all the awful things that had been happening. He supposed it was a nice sign that she was more able to let her guard down around him.

‘You look like a mess Hamid,’ she said, blunt as always, but he had to appreciate the honesty he knew he would always get from her.

He didn’t exactly know how to respond to this, ‘y-yeah, I guess so. It’s just- I thought- Zolf-,’ he struggled to string the words together. Even if everything wasn’t coming together in his head, at least he wasn’t shaking on the ground (yet). When he had been younger panic attacks had been a far more regular occurrence, and even though he still got in a bit over his head at times- words buried in his chest unable to come out in the way that he intended- they didn’t tend to hit as bad as they used to.

Sasha seemed to tell that he wasn’t up for talking, and very tentatively reached out a hand for him to hold. He had to reach up a little to hold it, he always forgot quite how big the height difference between the two of them was, but he appreciated the gesture- especially coming from Sasha. He knew she wasn’t one for even standing too close to anyone else, so her freely offering him her hand was something monumental. He gave it a light squeeze, his words still weren’t really working, but he wanted her to know that he appreciated this.

The rest of their journey was spent mainly in silence, Sasha interjecting with her observations about the people they walked past on the street. She was very good at making guesses as to what people might be up to and having something else to focus on helped Hamid a little to stop thinking about Zolf.

He knew it had been Zolf’s choice, he was glad that neither he nor Bertie had left the party in a more final way, but it still hurt. He had promised to write to Zolf, though he wasn’t sure if he would ever get any responses.

He latched onto people too quickly, he had only known Zolf for a couple of months and yet he was so distraught about his departure that he could barely speak. That was where it had all gone wrong with Gideon too, with Hamid desperate for human connection and grasping at whatever he could get, no matter the cost.

This was different though, as the warm grip of Sasha’s hand on his own reminded him, Zolf had things he needed to do, and Hamid wasn’t exactly alone. He had Sasha, and Bertie too, although he doubted Bertie would be very sympathetic. He didn’t really want to see the other man right now, knowing that it was he who drove Zolf to leave. He had never been able to bring himself to hate Bertie, try as he might, but right now he reckoned he was pretty damn close.

He blinked at the sudden light as they entered the hotel, he had barely even realised they were drawing close, and as he looked up at Sasha, he noticed that she was talking to him and must have been for the past couple of minutes.

‘Hamid?’ she asked, a look of concern etched across the features that she usually tried so hard to keep blank. ‘You alright mate?’ Her tone was nonchalant, but he could tell she was worried, he must have been out of it for quite some time.

‘Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that,’ he tried to brush it off. It was easy not to meet Sasha’s eyes as he spoke, given that he had to look up to even see her face. ‘This hasn’t happened in a while, but I’ve had enough panic attacks to know what I’m doing.’ He was aiming for casual, but if the look on Sasha’s face was anything to go by, he had only succeeded in making her more concerned about him.

She picked him up, without any word of warning, her arms surprisingly gentle around him as she walked him over to one of the beds in the hotel room. ‘You get some sleep Hamid,’ she said, gathering all the blankets she could find around the room. It made Hamid smile a little bit, despite everything. It was abundantly clear that Sasha had no idea what to do with him in this situation, but she was trying, and it was evident that she cared. That was all that really mattered.

He lay there for a while, feeling safer than he had in a long time. Some time later, after he had dozed off and awoken several times- his sleep wasn’t great at the best of times, and this certainly hadn’t been helping matters- he felt a weight on the bed, the mattress shifting slightly as someone else sat down on it.

He stayed completely still, heart racing a little as he opened one eye a little to get a look at who it was and was shocked when he saw Sasha, her guard down more than he had ever seen. He could make out Bertie sleeping on one of the other beds, he must have gotten back while Hamid was asleep. There was a bed where Sasha could sleep if she wanted, but here she was with him.

It was clear that she thought he was still asleep, as she fussed about with the covers trying not to disturb him as she clambered into the bed. She curled up at the edge, hoarding so many of the blankets she had fetched for him earlier. He supposed it had been wishful thinking to imagine that Sasha would ever be one for cuddling, instead it felt like she was guarding the bed, watching over him to make sure he was okay after the events of the day.

And, if the two of them awoke with their limbs intertwined, far closer to each other than they had been at the start of the night, well neither of them were exactly about to complain.

 

iii

Sasha had been the last one to bed out of the group, yet like always, she was the first to wake. She had drifted off on the edge of Hamid’s bed, still rather concerned by just how out of it he had seemed earlier, but when she woke up, she was sprawled across the middle. Hamid was practically clinging to her, his hands loosely clasped around the fabric of her shirt. She still wasn’t entirely comfortable with whatever situation the two of them had going on here, but if this was what it took to reassure Hamid then she was willing to go along with it. And maybe it was nice to actually have some human contact for the first time in a long while, but that wasn’t something she would ever admit to out loud.

Hamid awoke with a yawn, and Sasha had to admit to herself that it was a little bit cute. Okay, maybe a bit more than a little, it was pretty damn cute. He noticed his position on the bed, and immediately moved off her, frantically apologising to her. It was good to see that he had his voice back again.

‘Oh god, I’m so sorry Sasha. I know you don’t like that kind of thing, and that was totally inappropriate of me.’

She climbed out the bed, shaking her head a little at his apologies. He had been asleep and yet here he was, making out like he had done something awful. She brushed out the creases in her clothes as she spoke, ‘S’alright, I could tell you weren’t exactly sleeping great, so I thought I might be able to help.’

‘Thank you, Sasha,’ he said, and she couldn’t help but notice how stupidly earnest he sounded, in that way he often did.

‘No problem mate, good to see you’re feeling better and stuff.’ She hated how her words came out at times, though the eloquence that Hamid spoke with wasn’t really  _her,_ it sure would be nice to convey her thoughts as words with the practiced ease that he seemed to have. She wasn’t great at the whole  _emotions_ thing.

They never really spoke about that night in great detail after that. But, if after some of the more trying days they faced as a team- particularly after what happened with Kafka- Hamid seemed a little more down that his usually cheerful personality, she would wordlessly join him, letting him wrap his arms around her as he sobbed into her shoulder, patting him awkwardly as he did so. And if she woke up one morning with more blood on her back than usual, weighed down by the sheer dread of life- or whatever you called it when you were technically undead- he would give her hand a squeeze and she wouldn’t jerk her fingers away despite that remaining to be her first instinct. She still wasn’t good with emotions as words, but they had managed to come to some kind of unspoken agreement to comfort the other when required and that was very much something she was alright with.


End file.
